weeksj10: Rushdie's books focusing on the Khalifa family are like a modern day Alice in Wonderland with a spicy bight from its Indian setting. The wordplay, characters, and plot all mirror those of Alice and like Carroll's book Rushdie's can and will be enjoyed by magic lovers of all ages.… (more)

2.5/5 starsI post all my reviews to athroneofbooks.booklikes.com*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

“Curiouser and Curiouser!”

With a special edition such as this I’m never sure what I’m supposed to review. This book is the Alice in Wonderland we all know and love by Lewis Carrol. But the “special” part of this edition, the illustrations by Salvador Dali, just didn’t do it for me. I’m not sure why, in art I just like what I like and Dali’s normal surrealist paintings make the cut, but these watercolor illustrations don’t.

So I’m at a loss for where to rate this. I recommend everyone read the story at least once in their life because it is a classic I hold dear to my heart, but I don’t recommend the version I am reviewing. I much prefer the illustrations by Tenniel. So if you actually read my review you’ll see why I gave it such a lower rating than the story garners.

Wow, I actually feel bad about rating it so low. If you like the illustrations in the book this would be a lovely edition to house on your shelves for sure, so don’t let me deter you.

The author of this book was either crazy or a genius, maybe both as they tend to walk in pairs.Well, this is a classic fable set in a fantasy world where everything could happen. There are so many extravagant characters that you'll lose count. It's is impossible not to fall in love with this book.I think I'll rename one of my cats Cheshire. ( )

Summary- This is a story about a young girl named Alice. She finds a magical world called wonderland, while she is in this world she meet may interesting friends such as the mad hatter, the white rabbit, the twiddles and several other. She has one crazy adventure after another.Personal Reaction- I love the story of Alice in Wonderland. I remember it being on of the “really big books” I read as a kid. This story is a classic.Classroom Extension.1.“Read then Watch. After the children read the book have the watch the movie Alice in wonderland (the original) . Talk about how the book was different form the movie.2. “ A world like Wonderland” Have the kids write a essay about their own wonderland. What would they have it what adventures would they have, what characters would be there…3."Wonderland friends in real life.” Have the kid choose a character from the book that they would want to meet in real life. Write a paragraph about what they would do with that character.

It's just a delicious, borderline hallucinatory, confection of a book. Invention and imagination tumble over each other in the excitement, and there is something in there to delight every reader. There are countless plays on words (the mouse giving a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror to restore those who have been soaked by Alice's gigantic tears is the one that, for some reason, pleased me most), verbal pyrotechnics and semantic shenanigans to please the "ordinary" reader. And although they entirely passed me by at the time, I know now from various more scientifically-minded friends that their childish interests snagged on the mathematician author's various numerical and logic puzzles.

All in the golden afternoonFull leisurely we glide;For both our oars, with little skill,By little arms are plied,While little hands make vain pretenseOur wanderings to guide

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,Beneath such dreamy weather,To beg a tale of breath too weakTo stir the tiniest feather!Yet that can one poor voice availAgainst three tongues together!

[plus another five verses]

Dedication

[None]

First words

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

Quotations

And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

'Curiouser and coriouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ...

How doth the little crocodileImprove his shining tail,And pour the waters of the NileOn every golden scale!

'Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, 'are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! "William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earl of Mercia and Northumbria -"'

'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,'And your hair has ecome very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head -Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

In the most renowned novel by English author Lewis Carroll, restless young Alice literally stumbles into adventure when she follows the hurried, time-obsessed White Rabbit down a hole and into a fantastical realm where animals are quite verbose, logic is in short supply, and royalty tends to be exceedingly unpleasant. Each playfully engaging chapter presents absurd scenarios involving an unforgettable cast of characters, including the grinning Cheshire Cat and the short-tempered Queen of Hearts, and every stop on Alice's peculiar journey is marked by sharp social satire and wondrously witty wordplay.

About the author:Lewis Carroll—the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—was an English mathematician and writer who remains best known for his imaginative tales of a young girl named Alice and her lively exploits in Wonderland. Carroll excelled at sending up the staid values of Victorian England with wildly strange narratives that featured reality directly at odds with fantasy, resulting in some of the most fascinatingly memorable moments in all of British literature.

Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.

For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter